Saw that as well. I'd infer from that that they were pretty far along on the Windows version before thinking of porting. Otherwise, we're still back to the question of, is DirectX really that much easier?
This is a legit question, because, frankly, I wonder. Why can't this particular program use OpenGL rather than DirectX? OpenGL would most likely make the porting efforts less time-consuming, as Linux, most *nix and Mac OS X all support OpenGL, but DirectX is Windows only. OpenGL also works on Windows does it not? Is DirectX so much easier that it's worth the porting time? If you start from the get-go with porting in mind, why use DirectX? Someone please educate me.
How about putting together a more modest sum, say, $100,000, and giving it to these guys, and then donating the rest to something like tsunami relief or something. Yeah, I love Trek, too. But (a) even if they make enough to fund another season, Berman and Braga still have the helm and (b) Paramount still gets the revenue, I'm sure, since they wouls still own the franchise.
I played around with this for a time. Stored all my various passwords in one of my desktop pictures at work. In the end, while it was certainly interesting, I didn't see a personally practical use for it. Perhaps integration with a keyring type of application? A replacement for the DB file that is used to store the passwords? I send so few iamges to my friends that a sudden influx of images being sent back and forth with hidden communications would draw more attention to anyone seriously interested in my boring life. I feel secure because I am obscure.
I can certainly see the use in espionage, hiding the real message in the static, as it were (Didn't a Tom Clancy book use this plot device? I think the message was sent in the connect noises for the modem). And NS's Baroque Cycle had some interesting steganographic bits in it (excessively long and boring letters about the nobility's obsession with fashion hiding an encrypted message for all to see). But on a day to day basis, I doubt this will affect most people.
Well, I've been wanting a smartRoadster in the US for about 2 years now. Where the hell is it?? Yes, I know, it's only one car, and Europe does tend to get the shaft on the tech side rather consistently. But I really think it's just that (a) it's not made in Europe and (b) the European market for this, and other, technological toys is rated small, whether it deserves it or not.
Maybe they're right. Maybe a network infrastructure shouldn't be done via wireless, which still has some major security issues to resolve before. Maybe a network infrastructure is completely useless for a muni to build. But the reasons they state are all wrong. Municipalities should spend tax dollars to provide basic services to the citizens of the municipalities. Providing fire department and police services is an example. Educational services at a job-training level. It's a service. And, just like other services provided by a muni, taxpayers can pay to get better service (private alarm and fire suppression systems, security guards for gated communities, DeVry training, a college education). So, is it a service that *should* be provided to everyone with the possibility of better service from the private sector? Maybe. But claiming it will have unforseen cost-overruns (what police department or fire department isn't if there is a major riot, or forest fire), or quash competiton (security firms seem to do well enough), or not spur business (that's not the primary purpose of a muni anyway), is really just setting up straw men to knock down. And since it's a telco front that's setting them up, I trust it's conclusions as much as a 3 dollar bill with Clinton on the front.
Agreed. My gaming habits are quite fulfilled with Burnout (2|3), with the occasional foray into Need for Speed Underground when I want some career play. NfSU 2 is pretty cool as well, with all the customizations you can do that, in the end, don't seem to make all that much difference, since the AI is evidently doing exactly the same customizations. Meh. The online play is fun though.
I think I'll stick with the PSP in any case. As powerful as the PSP is, it seems to me that most of the games available for PSX and possibly some PS2 games can be ported as easily as buring the game data to the UMD format. The controller isn't terribly different (one analog stick rather than two, and one L and R shoulder button rather than two - I have a few PSX games that don't use the missing buttons in any way). So, just a gut reaction, but I think the game support for PSP is going to far outpace the game support for the DS, or even the GBE, if the GBE does indeed go with mini-discs like the PSP.
If you're referring to Halo, then, well, OK, to some extent. But immersive, complex, and compelling storylines to match the pace and excitement of the game play is something that Bungie as a whole excels at. And Oni, for instance, is a phenomenal combination of FPS and fighter (a la Tekken), and a far cry from the Lara Croft of the time. The Marathon series is widely hailed as the gold standard for early FPS storylines, even if the gameplay was rather standard. Marathon had network play available, as well as the use of the Mac mircophone for player-to-player comms. And that was in 1994. Think Doom on the PC side at the time. And way back in the mists of time, Bungie had a game called Minotaur, which was one of the first games that required networking. And let's not forget the Myth series, once of the best RTS games ever.
So, perhaps not exactly ground-breaking. But it seems that every genre they entered, they expanded with storylines, and techological innovations in gaming.
The gaming industry is increasingly motivated by profits for major conglomerates (the EA sports deal comes to mind), not even just little publisher shops anymore. In an environment like that, you have to have companies that are willing to use the profits from a major hit series to fund development on more groundbreaking items. Better yet, support a studio with a history of groundbreaking games (Bungie anyone?) and let them keep doing what they do best. Even then, what the masses want is what's going to fill the shelves in most cases. We're lucky to see any creativity at all sometimes, and creativity in a sequel, well, that's just unheard of in many cases. Scott McCloud wrote about this in the context of comics. Penny Arcade covered someofthisin a series a few years ago.
Are video game females portrayed as unrealistic? On the whole, yes. Some are better than others, for instance the comic-like drawings in Need for Speed Underground 2 aren't all that unrealistic. Lara Croft? Not a chance. But then, Barbie, who has been popular with young girls forever, is also unrealistic, so I don't see why that would be driving young girls, who would eventually become mature women in the industry, away from gaming. Maybe it's the lack of decent stories to have the female characters interact in? The female Jedis in Jedi Academy are every bit as skilled as the males. And the story line doesn't change in a gender dependant manner. But that's a small sampling. Certainly, Lara Croft and The Operative from NOLF are strong female roles.
On the other hand, not that many males are portrayed realistically either. Seen NFL Street Big? Yeah, those gorillas are realistic.
Now if you'll excuse me, I left Virtual Valerie in a compromising position.
Even better, it could be like the keys that I've seen at some of the more upscale hotels: it looks like an actual key, good solid metal with a goo, reassuring weight. But instead of teeth, it has what appear to be magnetic strips. You turn it like a key to disengage the lock and open the door, but I doubt that is required. Just plug it in to your computer. Maybe it can even store more than one password. But please please please no RFID junk. Keep it physical.
I've tried a couple of Linux Live CDs on some Macs I have lying around. This sounds like it not only loads, but does interesting things once it's up.
For the most part, I'm pretty happy with OS X, though, so I am not planning on a dual boot system any time soon. So . . . yeah, I guess Live CDs are the way to go for me.
The last handheld I had was a Sega GameGear. Bought it in the UK, and bought a bunch of games to go with it. The main game I played had the secret code of 2-1-2-down-up. I really enjoyed the color graphics, as compared to my sister's GameBoy (first gen - she still has it). Alas, my GameGear died about 2 years ago. Not even the venerable Halley Wars would load.
PSP looks like it'll have better developer support than the GameGear ever had, and a huge leap in graphics over Big N's current offerings. I might just have to get a new portable game platform.
You do realize that burning a flag is an approved method of decommissioning a flag that is "no longer a fitting emblem for display," right (see section 8k of the Flag Code)? Now, most people burning a flag just do it to piss off patriotic Americans. But consider, what does "fitting emblem for display" mean? Is a flag still a "fitting emblem" when it no longer represents what it once stood for (perhaps to some people)? Maybe. An arguement for a larger forum perhaps . . . .
And consider the implications of making flag burning illegal: no doubt protesters of such a law would burn more flags, resulting in legal costs, court time, and possibly imprisonment, which will all land on my desk the next time I have to pay taxes. And if we made flag burning illegal . . . what about pictures of flags? What about tearing up pictures of flags (ala Sinead - "Fight the real enemy!")?
Making flag burning illegal won't stop protesters from doing something to piss you off.
Still, I do agree that some countries have more freedoms in narrower areas. But when it comes to across-the-board freedoms, a US citizen in the US has a hell of a lot.
Last night's Simpsons had a spoof CGI movie preview "coming from DreamWorks" about "Cards." Starring Eddie Murphy, and a cameo by Jack Nicholson ("You can't handle the twos."). And, sadly, that spoof is pretty much what I expect from DreamWorks: big names and sound bites. What I expect from Pixar is excellent voice acting and engaging, multi-faceted plots. The fact that "Cards" sounds superficially like "Cars," which is Pixar's next film, and given the tragic history of DreamWorks essentially hashing the latest Pixar millieu, I found the spoof both droll and accurate.
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Saw that as well. I'd infer from that that they were pretty far along on the Windows version before thinking of porting. Otherwise, we're still back to the question of, is DirectX really that much easier?
This is a legit question, because, frankly, I wonder. Why can't this particular program use OpenGL rather than DirectX? OpenGL would most likely make the porting efforts less time-consuming, as Linux, most *nix and Mac OS X all support OpenGL, but DirectX is Windows only. OpenGL also works on Windows does it not? Is DirectX so much easier that it's worth the porting time? If you start from the get-go with porting in mind, why use DirectX? Someone please educate me.
How about putting together a more modest sum, say, $100,000, and giving it to these guys, and then donating the rest to something like tsunami relief or something. Yeah, I love Trek, too. But (a) even if they make enough to fund another season, Berman and Braga still have the helm and (b) Paramount still gets the revenue, I'm sure, since they wouls still own the franchise.
We must move forward, not backward, upward, not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.
I can certainly see the use in espionage, hiding the real message in the static, as it were (Didn't a Tom Clancy book use this plot device? I think the message was sent in the connect noises for the modem). And NS's Baroque Cycle had some interesting steganographic bits in it (excessively long and boring letters about the nobility's obsession with fashion hiding an encrypted message for all to see). But on a day to day basis, I doubt this will affect most people.
Well, I've been wanting a smart Roadster in the US for about 2 years now. Where the hell is it?? Yes, I know, it's only one car, and Europe does tend to get the shaft on the tech side rather consistently. But I really think it's just that (a) it's not made in Europe and (b) the European market for this, and other, technological toys is rated small, whether it deserves it or not.
Hneh, hneh, 'Buy him out,' boys!
Since there are a few PSP Japan imports floating around the US, what's to stop EU consumers from doing the same?
And to think I just got criticized for calling Bungie games groundbreaking . . .
Maybe they're right. Maybe a network infrastructure shouldn't be done via wireless, which still has some major security issues to resolve before. Maybe a network infrastructure is completely useless for a muni to build. But the reasons they state are all wrong. Municipalities should spend tax dollars to provide basic services to the citizens of the municipalities. Providing fire department and police services is an example. Educational services at a job-training level. It's a service. And, just like other services provided by a muni, taxpayers can pay to get better service (private alarm and fire suppression systems, security guards for gated communities, DeVry training, a college education). So, is it a service that *should* be provided to everyone with the possibility of better service from the private sector? Maybe. But claiming it will have unforseen cost-overruns (what police department or fire department isn't if there is a major riot, or forest fire), or quash competiton (security firms seem to do well enough), or not spur business (that's not the primary purpose of a muni anyway), is really just setting up straw men to knock down. And since it's a telco front that's setting them up, I trust it's conclusions as much as a 3 dollar bill with Clinton on the front.
Agreed. My gaming habits are quite fulfilled with Burnout (2|3), with the occasional foray into Need for Speed Underground when I want some career play. NfSU 2 is pretty cool as well, with all the customizations you can do that, in the end, don't seem to make all that much difference, since the AI is evidently doing exactly the same customizations. Meh. The online play is fun though.
I think I'll stick with the PSP in any case. As powerful as the PSP is, it seems to me that most of the games available for PSX and possibly some PS2 games can be ported as easily as buring the game data to the UMD format. The controller isn't terribly different (one analog stick rather than two, and one L and R shoulder button rather than two - I have a few PSX games that don't use the missing buttons in any way). So, just a gut reaction, but I think the game support for PSP is going to far outpace the game support for the DS, or even the GBE, if the GBE does indeed go with mini-discs like the PSP.
So, perhaps not exactly ground-breaking. But it seems that every genre they entered, they expanded with storylines, and techological innovations in gaming.
The gaming industry is increasingly motivated by profits for major conglomerates (the EA sports deal comes to mind), not even just little publisher shops anymore. In an environment like that, you have to have companies that are willing to use the profits from a major hit series to fund development on more groundbreaking items. Better yet, support a studio with a history of groundbreaking games (Bungie anyone?) and let them keep doing what they do best. Even then, what the masses want is what's going to fill the shelves in most cases. We're lucky to see any creativity at all sometimes, and creativity in a sequel, well, that's just unheard of in many cases. Scott McCloud wrote about this in the context of comics. Penny Arcade covered some of this in a series a few years ago.
On the other hand, not that many males are portrayed realistically either. Seen NFL Street Big? Yeah, those gorillas are realistic.
Now if you'll excuse me, I left Virtual Valerie in a compromising position.
Even better, it could be like the keys that I've seen at some of the more upscale hotels: it looks like an actual key, good solid metal with a goo, reassuring weight. But instead of teeth, it has what appear to be magnetic strips. You turn it like a key to disengage the lock and open the door, but I doubt that is required. Just plug it in to your computer. Maybe it can even store more than one password. But please please please no RFID junk. Keep it physical.
For the most part, I'm pretty happy with OS X, though, so I am not planning on a dual boot system any time soon. So . . . yeah, I guess Live CDs are the way to go for me.
PSP looks like it'll have better developer support than the GameGear ever had, and a huge leap in graphics over Big N's current offerings. I might just have to get a new portable game platform.
And consider the implications of making flag burning illegal: no doubt protesters of such a law would burn more flags, resulting in legal costs, court time, and possibly imprisonment, which will all land on my desk the next time I have to pay taxes. And if we made flag burning illegal . . . what about pictures of flags? What about tearing up pictures of flags (ala Sinead - "Fight the real enemy!")?
Making flag burning illegal won't stop protesters from doing something to piss you off.
Still, I do agree that some countries have more freedoms in narrower areas. But when it comes to across-the-board freedoms, a US citizen in the US has a hell of a lot.
Last night's Simpsons had a spoof CGI movie preview "coming from DreamWorks" about "Cards." Starring Eddie Murphy, and a cameo by Jack Nicholson ("You can't handle the twos."). And, sadly, that spoof is pretty much what I expect from DreamWorks: big names and sound bites. What I expect from Pixar is excellent voice acting and engaging, multi-faceted plots. The fact that "Cards" sounds superficially like "Cars," which is Pixar's next film, and given the tragic history of DreamWorks essentially hashing the latest Pixar millieu, I found the spoof both droll and accurate.
Agreed. Compared to cramming most of a PC into a Mac Mini case, this wins Best Apple Hack of the Day, Week and Month.
But clearly, the stereo system wouldn't fit.
Don't forget Coca-Cola (they introduced the dismal New Coke shortly afterwards).
Is it just me or is the resoltion of that .gif particularly bad? I'd be prepared to swear I see the line "There are herpes on both sides."
In other other news, when given a choice between otherwise highly similar products, consumers will choose to pay less money . . .